තල මල පිපිලා – Thala Mala Pipila

I think it was about more than 10 years ago when I last watched a stage drama. And that was මනමේ (maname), back when I was in school. Before that it was a stage drama called කැඩපත (kadapatha) – I barely remember that one. Even though I wasn’t dyeing to see another one, I always wanted to go watch a stage drama just for a change to all the big screen (wide-screen, lcd screen, television screen) movies. After missing several opportunity I finally got a chance to watch the famous stage artist Jayalath Manoratnes (ජයලත් මනෝරත්නයන්) thala mala pipila (තල මල පිපිලා) stage drama today.

When the drama started I was captured by the strange lighting that was made in the stage focussing the attention on a person wearing on a robot costume. Eventhough the constume wasn’t good enough to pass for a real robot, it made me feel that we are about to enter to a strange world. I sat up straighter on my chair. The year it said was 4000 AD. It explains that they no longer pocess anything called tradition (සම්ප්‍රදාය) or emotions (හැඟීම්) but there were a species called humans millenniums ago who did have it. The robot wanted to share one such historical scene with us. It was one of the wierdest way of stepping in to a story, but nonetheless the surrounding the lighting and the synthesized voice made it very interesting.

The story starts up from that point onwards, and I wont explain what the story is, because I would probably ruine the greateness of such an artistic creation just by trying to make you imagine what it was like. But I must say the attention to the details, the lighting, the music, the hilarity and the magnificent performance of the stage actors did not stir me even anything close to bordem. It kept us interested right until to the end.